Hi Parents,
Well, we have two more days of testing next week. I will be so happy to be back on a normal schedule after that! Results from the CoGAT and ITBS will come back sometime around the end of November. After that, Target teachers will let you know if any further testing is needed for your child to determine advanced learning placement. Check out below to see what we've been doing this week in class...
Phonics/Grammar: We studied commonly misspelled third grade words this week. We also continued our study of pronouns, and added several interactive notebook pages to our grammar book. We played games to help us memorize the spelling patterns of important words and went back and edited our narratives to look for these tricky words.
Reading: We read several chapters in The White Giraffe. We also finished up our first book club selections and completed a graphic organizer on the books, adding a recommendation at the end. We read a nonfiction article on Rosa Parks and discussed how to read different genres. For fiction (reading for entertainment), we discussed what elements to look for such as characters and traits, setting details, plot, conflict, and resolution. We also discussed that we read these stories without stopping, so we can create a movie in our minds. We compared this type of reading to nonfiction or informational reading. We learned that with this genre, we need to sit up straight and get our brains ready to learn new information. We should read until our brains are full of new information, then we need to stop and jot down that new info or stop and see if we can retell the info in our own words. We began learning how to create outlines (boxes and bullets) to find the most important ideas and details within a nonfiction passage. We then answered important comprehension questions about our Rosa Parks article.
Writing: We began our new narratives, choosing one of our ideas that we brainstormed last week. After telling our stories to a writing partner, we broke those stories down into sections and scrawled phrases across the tops of the pages of our narrative book in order to organize our writing. We looked at how to include the "internal" story in our narratives, which is the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of the character (us). I modeled incorporating this strategy into our narratives. We also looked closely at how to stretch out the details, especially the "heart" of our narratives. We practiced including figurative language into our writing. We shared our favorite parts with our writing partners.
Math: We looked at the various strategies for multiplying and dividing. Creating equal groups, repeated addition, and drawing arrays are the strategies we've learned this week. We also discussed how multiplication and division are related. We used manipulatives to model multiplication and division word problems. We played several dice and domino partner games to practice this skill. We reviewed addition and subtraction multi-step word problems during our morning work time.
Social Studies: We read an information article on the branches of government and their corresponding responsibilities in our Georgia Weekly Studies newspaper. We made an anchor chart listing these branches and responsibilities.
STEM: We asked ourselves the question, "Why and how to animals use camouflage in order to survive in their environment?" We related this idea to the white giraffe in our class novel and discussed why white giraffes are so rare. We researched animals and their camouflage. We then got our STEM challenge; to create a "giraffe" that blends in with its surroundings. The kids looked at three different environments and had to plan how to make their giraffe camouflaged in one of these scenes. We completed the planning stage and will move on to the "create and test" stages next week.
Class News and Announcements...
Fall Break is almost here! There will be no school the week of September 24-28.
Thank you to everyone who has sent in testing goodies and prize box items this week!
If your child is interested in doing some extra at-home work, we'd love to see research on animal adaptations, survival skills of plants and animals, or information on levels and branches of our US government. This "at-home" work is great if additional work is needed to determine Target eligibility and I need to create a portfolio of work. I've already been collecting some of the amazing additional work these motivated students have been showing me!
Remember to sign up for a parent-teacher conference using the Sign-Up Genius link I sent earlier in the week. I will be taking down the active link soon and will randomly assign times for those who have not chosen their own. If you have busy schedules, please choose a time that is convenient for you.
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